◎陳正健
A longer yawn may correlate to a bigger brain size, according to a new study. Researchers from the State University of New York in the US looked at the videos of 29 mammals yawning to calculate the average length of their yawns. The animals had their brain weight already documented in an earlier research.
根據一項新研究，打哈欠的時間長可能與較大的腦部尺寸有關。美國紐約州立大學研究人員觀察29部哺乳類打哈欠的影片，計算牠們打哈欠的平均時間。在此前的一份研究裡，這些動物的大腦重量已被記錄下來。
When the researchers crunched the numbers, they realised that brain weight and the number of neurons in the outer layer of the brain called cortex can reliably predict yawn length. For instance, gorillas, horses, walruses and African elephants may have huge sizes but they have shorter yawns than humans because the size of their brains are smaller compared with ours.
研究人員在咀嚼這些數字時，他們了解到，透過大腦重量和腦部外層─即腦皮層─的神經元數量，能夠可靠預測打哈欠的時間。例如，大猩猩、馬、海象和非洲象可能體型龐大，但牠們打哈欠的時間不及人類，因為牠們的大腦尺寸跟我們比起來較小。
The findings suggest that the length of yawn does not correlate to the size of the body but to the size of the brain. The research team led by Andrew Gallup, from the State University of New York also found that the animals with bigger brain were more variable in the length of their yawns.
這項發現指出，打哈欠的時間與體型大小無關，但與大腦尺寸有關。這支由紐約州立大學學者安德魯．蓋洛普領導的研究團隊也發現，腦袋較大的動物，打哈欠的時間也更有變化。
According to Liz Cirulli Rogers, from Duke University School of Medicine, it is possible that more intelligent animals have different types of yawn in response to different stimuli while the less-intelligent ones only have one type of yawn.
杜克大學醫學院學者莉茲．奇魯利．羅傑斯指出，更高智商的動物，對於不同的刺激，可能有著不同類型的哈欠反應，較低智商的動物則只有一種哈欠反應。
新聞辭典
correlate：動詞，與…有關，和…相關。例句：His research results correlate with mine.（他的研究結果與我所做的研究相關。）
walruse：名詞，海象。例句：Walruses are known for their tusks.（海象以其長牙聞名。）
stimuli：名詞，刺激，刺激物。例句：This movie plays as a positive stimulus to me.（這部電影帶給我正面刺激。）
http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/Service/english/english.php?engno=1043073&day=2016-10-18
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